The new cultivar is a product of a planned breeding program. The seed parent is the unpatented Aloe hybrid ‘Sunset’. The pollen parent is an unnamed, unpatented variety of Aloe divaricata. The crossing was made in December 2014 at a commercial greenhouse in Vista, Calif. ‘SWORDFISH’ was selected by the inventor in November 2015.
Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar ‘SWORDFISH’ was first performed by tissue culture at a commercial laboratory in Vista, Calif. in December 2015. ‘SWORDFISH’ has since produced several generations and has shown that the unique features of this cultivar are stable and reproduced true to type.